


Mulan's Fate

by storycollage



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark, F/F, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Multiple Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:25:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2055315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storycollage/pseuds/storycollage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens to Mulan after she joins the Merry Men? The warrior was mysteriously absent on the show, her fate unknown, her name forbidden. Even among outlaws, was her love for Aurora worthy of a death sentence--or are there other fates for women like her in fairytale land?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Mulan experiences a rude awakening

She could hardly feel the branches as she crashed through them, heedless of the obvious trail she was making for her pursuers. There were only two thoughts in her head. The first was that she had to put distance between herself and the group of men chasing her. The second was a simple plea:

“Save me, Aurora.”

The princess was not the type to swoop in and save a warrior from being filled with arrows in the forest. No, Mulan was the hero. That was why she had joined Robin Hood’s band of Merry Men in the first place.

The Merry Men followed a code of honour rather than the law of the land. She had thought she would be safe with them, but it appeared as though some subjects were forbidden even among the Enchanted Forest’s outlaws.

An arrow whizzed past her on the left. Judging from the proximity to her head, Little John had fired that shot. She heard another arrow bury itself in a tree eight feet away. That one must have been Robin’s.

Through the thicket to her right she could see Nasir closing the gap, hoping to cut her off before she could reach the bridge. Crossing the river gorge was her only chance. If she could make it across the bridge, she could cut the rope on the other side before Little John caught his breath enough for a clean shot.

Her blood ran cold as she heard Robin crow the Merry Men’s tune—a signal to someone yet unseen. He must have known she would best him in her tent when he ambushed her. Must have known she would head toward the bridge.

Without slowing her pace, she scanned the trees ahead for signs of ambush. She had no idea who would be waiting in the shadows for her, but they would make their move soon. She could hear the river now. She was close. Nasir was fast, but without any armour weighing her down, she was faster.

The trees ahead thinned. A shape, near the bridge. But he wasn’t waiting for her. The moon glinted on his sword as he hacked at the ropes connecting the bridge to this side of the gorge. It was Will. The only one of the Merry Men with a longsword. Besides her, of course.

But she didn’t have her longsword right now. Scarcely five minutes had passed since she’d awoken in her underclothes at the sound of Robin Hood’s purposeful gait nearing her tent. She’d taken the few seconds she had to put on her shoes. The sand she’d thrown in his face had been her only weapon of escape.

Another arrow hit the ground she’d just passed. Robin again. She’d run outside of Little John’s range—he wouldn’t waste any arrows on her until he knew he could hit her.

From her calculations, she had thirty seconds to best Will and get across the river before Little John would start firing again. She measured the speed of the man running through the thickets. She would have less than five seconds with Will before Nasir arrived with his knives.

She wasn’t worried about facing Will empty-handed. She would need a sword now, and his would be easily liberated from his hands. Nasir could be held at bay with the sword and wouldn’t risk throwing one of his last two knives into the river as she crossed the bridge. But crossing the bridge was now a problem. Will’s inexpert hacking had freed the right side from its tether. There was no way she could run across it now.

Will abandoned his work and held his sword in his overly confident hands as she ran towards him. She ducked to the left before he could complete his swing against her and jammed her foot into his shin as hard as she could. She couldn’t help but smile as the man toppled to the ground. She’d taken out his knee. That would be one less man on her trail. If she made it past this gorge, that is.

Nasir arrived right on time, knives in hand. He could deflect her sword with the knives, but he wasn’t expecting her to use her legs again. She feinted right and drew his attention up to her sword as she kicked his legs out from underneath him.

An arrow sailed into the river, three feet to her left. Robin had nearly caught up.

She took in the structure of the bridge and made a decision. Twining the loose rope around her free arm, she hacked at the remaining threads of the left side of the bridge.

The first second in the cold, raging water made it hard to breathe. Her lungs burned as she clawed her way up the bridge out of the water, toward the other side. The task was made more difficult by the weight of Will’s oversized sword, but she couldn’t let it go. If it didn’t get her killed now, it would keep her alive later.

An arrow hit the planks of the bridge to her right. Little John had arrived, but his breathing hadn’t steadied enough for his aim to be deadly. Another arrow plunged into the river.

Mulan barked out a laugh. Robin’s horrible aim wasn’t particularly funny at the moment, but another arrow by Little John would surely follow his and she would rather die laughing. The next one grazed her neck, giving her one final adrenaline surge to make it over the top of the cliff to relative safety.

As soon as she made it past the treeline, she stopped behind a thick redcedar to assess her attackers. Nasir was helping Will to stand as the less fit thieves finally arrived at the cliffs after Robin and Little John. One by one, every man she’d spoken to since joining the Merry Men emerged from the forest. Every single one of them now knew what she’d told Robin in secret only yesterday.

Had they known his plan this morning before she’d arisen? This afternoon, when they’d chattered together over their bowls of stew? Certainly they’d known it when they’d cheerily bid her goodnight only half an hour ago. If Aurora were here, would she be rallying with them? Would she sneak off in the night on a horse to be with her, or to slit her throat in her sleep?

Mulan was not given to sentimental gestures, nor to purposeless ones. But, all the same, she whispered into the peeling gray bark.

“Save me, Aurora."


	2. In which Mulan disguises herself and formulates a plan

Mulan wasn’t keen on lighting a fire, wary of Robin Hood’s extensive network through the forest. The wound on her neck wasn’t fatal, but cauterizing it would help stave off infection until she could forage for the ingredients for a healing salve.

She snuffed out the fire when she was done and went about setting up a snare for the morning’s breakfast. Finally, she rested, finding sleep only once she’d mapped out a plan for the next few days.

After the evening’s events, she was more reluctant than ever to trust a friend, much less one she’d spent so little time getting to know. But she’d felt something the first time she saw Emma. There was a sameness about her that had given Mulan a feeling of awful recognition she’d felt only once: in the French kingdom, when she’d looked into the eyes of the teenager burning in the centre of the square.

There are moments of knowing, and that was one of them. And just as she had known that she loved Aurora, she knew she trusted Emma Swan.

The saviour, they’d called her.

In her last waking moments, Mulan frowned. Maybe she’d been praying to the wrong blonde.

She woke up, as she always did, to thoughts of Aurora. Where was she? When would her pregnant belly start to show? What was she feeling?

As she emptied the traps and started preparing her breakfast, her thoughts turned to Philip. Wherever he was, he was probably doting on Aurora. From the stories she’d heard from both of them, the man would martyr himself if it would make Aurora’s feet less given to swelling. It was great quality in a friend or a lover, but a liability in someone you plan on raising a child with.

She’d felt the same impulse to martyrdom before. She would have died to keep Philip from succumbing to the wraith’s curse. But then where would she be? Would Philip and Aurora have raised _her_ from the dead?

Spending all of that time with Aurora had taught her that she had value as a living person. Had taught her that self-sacrifice can be heroic, and it can be selfish. It had also taught her just what it felt like to be the one someone depended on, the one someone loved.

She’d felt it when she’d returned Aurora’s heart to its home, and she hadn’t been able to shake it since.

They might have both loved each other then, but neither gave words to it. Like a coward, Mulan had hidden behind her fear. Not fear of rejection nor fear of her own exposure. Fear of a fate like that of the girl in the square for Aurora. Mulan had sacrificed her happiness to give the woman she loved her best chance.

She still wasn’t sure if that had been selfish or not.

 

* * *

 

The first week on the run had been difficult. Robin was well connected, and news of her perversion had spread further than she’d imagined, arriving in towns long before she did.

The best way to avoid detection while traveling through the forest was to appear as far from an outlaw woman as she could. She could never pass as a princess, but she’d traveled with Philip long enough to know how to conduct herself as a highborn man.

She’d subsisted on food she’d hunted or gathered herself, but she had turned to thievery for a few items of disguise on her way to Midas’s kingdom. Although his castle stood empty—the residents having been swept away long ago by the Evil Queen’s curse—no one dared claim the abandoned throne. Most of the gold had been raided by Robin’s network, but Mulan didn’t need gold.

In Midas’s wardrobe, she found not only the right clothes, but a store of jewels the Merry Men had overlooked. She took a few liberties combining the two, and fabricating a mask that might pass as something an unspecified foreign royal might wear.

Once she bought herself a horse, she would really look the part. And once she looked the part, she could play it. There was a dearth of royalty in these parts, and people were aching for order.

She had led an army in her homeland. She would create one here. They would follow her every order. They would raid the giants’ lair and find another magic bean. All she needed in order to convince everyone she was a prince was an empty castle, far from Robin’s territory. And she knew just where to find one.

She had to be honest with herself. The prince idea excited her for reasons other than protection and escape. Part of her imagined becoming a real prince—one Aurora could be with.

She looked in the mirror of her newly hired carriage and felt a wave of revulsion pass through her body. Even in her perfect fantasy, where Aurora would leave Philip to be with this fake Prince Ping, she felt jealous of the prince.

She wasn’t him.

She felt fundamentally wrong when she looked in the mirror. Where were the long, dark locks she’d imagined Aurora’s hands diving into? Her breasts were bound against a bandage, never to be pressed against Aurora’s, even in an unrealistic fantasy.

Still, the idea that she could hold counsel with Aurora as this prince was compelling. Her heart yearned to see the princess again. As each day passed, she became increasingly estranged from her fantasies about magic beans and saviours, and more and more certain that her salvation lay at the feet of the woman she loved.

But all her dreams were dashed when she arrived at the former castle of the Evil Queen to find it glowing with a green protection barrier.

Someone else had taken her castle.


	3. In which things happen both strange and terrible

As disappointed as she was to learn another foreigner had beaten her to claiming dominion over the Evil Queen’s land, she was more upset to learn that the usurper was a sociopathic witch who could not be bargained with.

She snuck away from her coachmen and bodyguards to spy on the witch when she could over the next few days. It looked as though Zelena could be appeased with complete subjugation, but Mulan doubted the witch wanted an aspiring hero dressed as a man in her castle at all.

She seemed to like turning people into flying monkeys, which was disturbing to watch except in one case: when a man with a limp showed the woman a scrap of parchment with a face etched on it.

Mulan didn’t have to see the face to know it was her own. The man carrying it was Will, whose injured knee had earned him the position as envoy. A risky demotion, it turned out.

She watched Will’s fuzzy new form fly away and vowed to herself that she would be extra wary of any flying monkey with one swollen knee.

On a whim, she tracked the monkey as he flew through the sky. If Robin was sending envoys, it meant the Merry Men were on their way. She needed to know where they were.

If they were here, this land wasn’t safe anymore. The only sanctuary left to her was too far north and she was certain her carriage could not weather the cold. She would have to pick them off.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t need to kill any of the Merry Men. As horrible as Robin Hood was, she didn’t want to rob Roland of his only living parent. A father with one arm and two broken knees would have to be enough.

Her entourage would start to worry about her soon, but she couldn’t risk exposing them to the poster Will had tried to show Zelena. She would concoct a reasonable excuse for her absence later.

She had scarcely walked a mile before she encountered an even stranger sight than a flying monkey transformation: the field ahead filled with purple smoke, and when the air cleared the grass was full of people of all classes and stations.

“Snow?” she called, recognizing her recent ally despite the long hair. In the noise of the crowd, her friend didn’t seem to hear her.

Snow White turned to someone else and began speaking.

Mulan’s heart leapt into her chest. Aurora! But she couldn’t speak to her now. She was dressed as Prince Ping, and she couldn’t risk revealing herself when the Merry Men were in the area.

She scanned the crowd for Emma, but she didn’t appear to be with them. For a moment, Mulan was filled with uncertainty. Had Emma been discovered? Burned at the stake? She wanted to believe that Snow would never do such a thing to her own daughter, but she couldn’t count on it.

Either way, her saviour was not amongst the group. The Evil Queen appeared to be, however—all dark ballgowns and cleavage. Regina, Emma had called her. The saviour shared her son with this villain, and from what Mulan could tell, she had wanted to share a whole lot more.

Mulan trusted Emma, and Emma seemed to trust Regina—but could Mulan trust the Evil Queen? Could she trust Snow White? If she went with Snow’s group, her old ally might recognize her and blow her cover.

And if the Merry Men’s wanted posters made it to this new group, she would be surrounded, and they would all want her dead.

Indecision left her on the outskirts of the clearing, watching the group disband into commoners or royals and skulk into the forest to resume the lives the curse had forced them to abandon. Two remained in the clearing: Philip and Aurora.

She couldn’t speak to them, but she could check in on them from a distance. She skirted the clearing and positioned herself near enough to their gazebo to hear them arguing.

Mulan listened to their conversation intently, disturbed that Aurora could be so terrified of Zelena that she would fail to warn her allies of the incredible danger they were in. Mulan felt a vague twitch of guilt on Aurora’s behalf, but her heart ached more for the vulnerable princess. Zelena would pay for whatever she had done to make Aurora so scared.

But Zelena would have to wait. No sooner had Philip and Aurora finished discussing the witch than Robin emerged from the tree line.

“Ho, there, compatriots!” he called.

“Philip, who is that?” Aurora asked.

“No idea,” Philip answered. “Maybe he was with your friends.”

“I was wondering if you might help me,” Robin stated. “I’m on a quest to warn a king and queen of an evil degenerate in their midst.”

“I’m afraid the castle you see beyond us holds no king nor queen,” Philip explained. He hesitated before elaborating. “I’m sorry—I didn’t catch your name.”

“Robin Hood, of Nottingham.”

“Robin Hood, of the Merry Men? I’ve heard of you!” Aurora exclaimed.

Mulan felt her heart sinking. If the princess was to learn of her affection for her, she wanted it to be from her own lips, not from Robin’s. And not in front of Philip.

“Aurora,” the princess introduced herself.

“Then you must be Philip,” Robin interjected. “And I’m afraid I must tell you that you are the pair I have been looking for.”

“But I’m not king yet,” Philip started to explain.

“Where is Mulan?” Aurora asked. Mulan’s heart thrilled at the worry in the princess’s voice. “The last I saw her, she said she was joining your band of Merry Men. Is she alright?”

“I’m afraid she isn’t, milady.”

“No!” Philip gasped. “What’s happened to her?”

“That’s the thing, my liege. I’m afraid she never was alright at all.”

“What do you mean?” Philip demanded. “Where is Mulan?”

“I suspect she may be somewhere nearby, stalking you.”

“Stalking us? What could you possibly mean?”

Mulan smiled to hear the incredulity in Philip’s tone. Perhaps the pair would not believe his claims. Of course, she was smiling behind a row of shrubbery while watching Aurora and Philip engage in private conversations, so Robin wasn’t completely off the mark. But it was nice to know her friends believed better of her.

“Mulan appears to have developed an unnatural connection with your princess. And I mean you no disrespect, Princess Aurora. It was clear from her obsessive stories about you that this was an unrequited passion. As soon as I understood the nature of her feelings for you, I tried to bring the problem to a swift resolution, but she fled and she has successfully evaded us for weeks now.”

“You’re saying Mulan has unnatural feelings for Aurora?” Philip asked, still skeptical.

“Milady,” Robin said, turning to Aurora. “You’ve been quiet this whole time. What I’ve told you—does it surprise you? She spoke of returning your heart, of entering you—”

Mulan nearly gasped. She had told him the story of returning Aurora’s heart, but he made it sound explicit! It had never even occurred to her that she had been inside Aurora’s body before, and it bothered her to hear her gesture of love twisted into something so base.

“Entering you?” Philip repeated, worry now creeping into his voice.

“It wasn’t like that,” Aurora insisted, her voice weak. “She saved me. She protected me in Philip’s absence, to honour you. It was never romantic. We became friends, but nothing more.”

Mulan breathed a sigh of relief. Aurora would protect her.

“But does it surprise you to learn it was something more to her?”

The smile disappeared from Mulan’s face as she heard the woman she loved insist that, no, it did not surprise her in the slightest, now that he had mentioned it. Her heart turned to ice as Aurora thanked Robin for warning them about her and wished him luck in tracking her down.

She sat in the bushes long after Robin had gone and let Aurora and Philip’s perturbed voices wash over her. Aurora had betrayed Snow White for her own protection—maybe this, too, was part of a plan to keep her family safe. Hadn’t Mulan wanted to distance herself from Aurora to spare the princess the danger of being associated with her?

But would it have hurt Aurora at all to have defended her? She could have explained that the two of them were just close friends, could have insisted it was loyalty and platonic love.

Her limbs felt weak. What was the point of going on, if Aurora did not think well of her? If Aurora had betrayed her?

“It’s obvious what path you’re on right now, my friend,” a voice whispered behind her ear. “But you’re not ready.”

Before she could call out, a hand clamped on her mouth and she felt her body dissolve into smoke.


	4. In which Mulan learns of her options from an unlikely source

She materialized in a large, dark, stone-lined room filled with candles. And, to Mulan’s shock, a tiny black unicorn.

“Welcome to my fortress, my friend,” the voice behind her said.

Fortress, unicorn, green smoke: Maleficent.

Mulan turned around to face her abductor. “I’m not your friend. You’re Maleficent. You tried to kill Aurora.”

“I didn’t try to kill her,” the witch insisted, apparently frustrated with this assumption. “I put her in a sleeping spell. It’s different. And look at her: she’s fine!”

Maleficent walked toward the unicorn and stroked his mane, as though it were completely normal that she should bring an enemy into her fortress and then ignore her.

Mulan followed her and the unicorn further into the fortress. “Aurora didn’t do anything to you. Do you know what you put her through? She’d never even met you! What reason could you possibly have for torturing her like that?”

“Well, if it had been up to me, she never would have been born in the first place.”

Seething hatred flared in Mulan’s chest.

“Her mother and I made a vow, you know.” She conjured a chair next to the one she was approaching. “Have a seat, dear.”

“I’ll stand.”

Maleficent shrugged and sat down, her unicorn stationing itself on her left. “Leah and I knew… we knew we weren’t permitted to be with each other, but we were young, romantic. We knew only of one option that would keep us together: death.”

The rage in Mulan’s chest subsided, replaced by curiosity. She reconsidered the witch’s offer and took a seat.

Maleficent continued, “But when she crawled into my window to take the poison I’d stolen from my mother’s study, she told me about _him_. Stefan, who wasn’t so bad as all the other men, and whose lips were soft like mine. Of course, I still wanted to die, as I’m sure a part of you does right now. But you and I both share a compulsion—”

She looked at Mulan and raised her eyebrow before correcting, “Two compulsions. The one is obvious, but the other is this: survival. You run from the men who chase you because part of you already knows that you were never meant for a wilting fate. You were never meant to be burned at the stake.”

Mulan’s breath caught in her throat. “How could you know about that? How long have you been watching me?”

“Watching you?” Maleficent cackled, but her voice turned hollow. “I watch all the girls they burn. I’m assuming you’ve watched one too?”

“Why do you watch? Why don’t you help?”

“The way you helped?” Maleficent teased. Her smile quickly faded. “Don’t get so angsty. I wouldn’t have helped before I had magic, either. But I did help when I could. I told many like us my story and then I informed them of their options. And there are options, you know.”

Mulan narrowed her eyes at the witch. “Get to it, then.”

“No need to be rude. Here, have a drink.” Maleficent conjured a glass of amber liquid for Mulan, then clicked her tongue in annoyance when she refused to take it. “Fine. Much like you, I escaped death.”

She stood and gestured for Mulan to follow her to her bookshelf, where she pulled out a book of maps. “I fled north, to the winter realm.” She pointed to an uncharted territory on the map. “There, I discovered an ousted queen in an empty palace made of ice. She told me about the other options. She too had skirted death, and she learned all there was to know about women like us. She taught me in the ways of our people, and the ways of evil.”

“You want me to become evil?” Mulan cried, almost laughing at the suggestion. “That’s your solution? How do you know there isn’t another option beyond married, dead, or evil?”

Maleficent leaned over the book and flashed her teeth, a smile that made Mulan see what Leah must have seen, and what she must have been afraid of.

“In another world there may be other options. I have spent my considerable years trying to find another path. Evil isn’t giving up on hope, my dear. I am no more resigned to a life of evil than I am to death or princes. But trust me when I say, you’ll last longer if you choose this way. Your hope will too.”

“So you still hope for Leah’s love.”

“No, not for her.” She closed the book and smoothed her hands over its mottled surface. “You’d do well to let Aurora go, too. Like breeds like, you see. But I have hoped for love. Only problem is, being evil, your options for companionship are other evil women.”

Maleficent ran her eyes over Mulan’s body and heaved a sigh. “And they all have issues.”

“But I’m a hero,” Mulan insisted.

“And what was I, before this?” Maleficent asked, a cheerful smile on her face.

“I don’t know that, but I know I’m not evil.”

The witch disappeared and rematerialized directly in front of her, a heady perfume emanating from her skin. She was beautiful, really. And she smelled wonderful. Mulan felt her eyelids becoming heavy.

Part of her knew the witch had cast a spell on her, but her body didn’t care. Her hands, half-obeying orders from her brain, rose from her sides to push the woman away, but contact with Maleficent’s torso sapped them of their strength and they would not push.

“Evil isn’t born,” Maleficent whispered, her mouth an inch from Mulan’s. “It’s made. I was made just like this.”

Mulan felt the witch’s hold on her dissipate. Strength returned to her hands, but she was surprised to feel them closing on the fabric of Maleficent’s dress. Surprised to find herself leaning in to kiss the witch.

It was softer than she could have ever imagined, but it was awful too. She finally found it in herself to push Maleficent away.

As she ran out of the fortress, she could hear the witch calling after her. “This is how we survive, Mulan. There is no other way.”

She ran until the pain in her heart was eclipsed by the pain in her stinging lungs. She paced in a small clearing as her mind struggled to process everything that had just happened.

It wasn’t in her to be evil. She knew it as surely as she knew she loved Aurora. She could never do what Maleficent had done. And yet, she had kissed the witch who’d cursed the princess she loved. The princess who had betrayed her, as her mother had betrayed the witch.

She wanted to run back to the fortress and drive her sword through Maleficent, just to prove that she could still be a hero, even with what she felt. But where would that leave Maleficent? Not evil, but dead, the other fate for women like her.

She couldn’t kill Maleficent. But she needed to prove her wrong.

She needed to prove that women like them could be heroes too.

Grudgingly, she turned around. She had a lot of questions, and only one witch knew where to find the ousted queen with all the answers.


	5. In which our hero embarks on a journey to find a queen

Maleficent wasn’t clear on the rules of the Evil Queen’s curse or the latest one that had restored life to her magic-sustained body in the Enchanted Forest. She explained that she’d spent all of her time in the other land either dead or in a dungeon, so she wasn’t clear what had happened to her former mentor, if she’d been there at all.

“There are only two possibilities for Elsa’s current absence in the Enchanted Forest: either she was transported to the other land and back in that urn Rumplestiltskin trapped her in, or someone finally figured out a way to kill her.”

Maleficent assured her that the Dark One’s presence was strangely absent from the Enchanted Forest, but Mulan was still uneasy about breaking into his castle. It was deep in the heart of Robin’s territory, and if the imp wasn’t guarding it someone worse might be. But she knew she needed to learn more about women like her. She needed Elsa.

“Why do you need her, anyway?” Maleficent asked.

Mulan glared at the witch as she sidled closer, her grin telling Mulan she knew exactly why.

“It’s almost like you don’t trust yourself with me,” the witch teased.

“I don’t trust you,” Mulan corrected her. “I don’t know Elsa, I don’t know if I can trust her, but I do know that I need more information. I’ve heard your story and I know your conclusions, but maybe she has some new ones. Maybe being trapped in an urn gave her enough time to think of a fourth way. Not dead, not evil, and not married to a man.”

“Or disguised like one,” Maleficent said with a wince. “When you return with her, we’ll cook up a fabulous Dark Mulan outfit for you.”

“I don’t need a Dark Mulan outfit.”

“Elsa designed mine.” Maleficent spun in a circle, arms outstretched. “Do you like it? I’ve made a few improvements, but the overall effect was her creation. I’m sure she’ll have some great ideas for you.”

“I’m not going to wear an evil outfit,” Mulan insisted. “There will be another way, Maleficent.”

The witch looked startled. “You say my name like I’m your friend.”

“You are. You’re at least my comrade. You and I can share the same fate, but it doesn’t have to be one of the three you’ve mentioned.” Mulan sighed. “Elsa will help us both find another path.”

 

* * *

 

 

Her entourage spoke nothing of her absence when she reappeared in the forest outside the Evil Queen's castle and climbed into her carriage. Silently, she thanked the social system that allowed a Prince’s actions to go unquestioned by those who served him. Using Maleficent’s shortcut from the Evil Queen’s territory to the imp’s castle, Mulan still had a day’s journey ahead of her and she spent most of it looking out the windows, scouring the trees for wanted flyers.

At nightfall, she ordered her coachmen to set up camp and rest. She spent most of the night going over the questions she would ask Elsa once she freed her from her urn. And she did not once let go of her sword, even in sleep.

By noon the next day, her carriage approached Rumplestiltskin’s castle. She looked in the mirror and checked her mask one last time. Maleficent had improved her disguise somewhat, but she couldn’t change too much without her entourage noting the difference. Still, she was more confident now that she could fool the Merry Men if they spotted her.

She heaved a sigh of relief when her carriage pulled up to the castle and she found the grounds empty. So too were the rooms of the castle. In the empty room in which she’d first met her nemesis, she produced the scroll Maleficent had given her and recited an incantation, emptying the contents of a vial of shimmering skin flakes onto the ornate rug under her feet.

A weak banner of velvety smoke surrounded her and transported her into a gigantic room, filled with dangerous objects. She held out the blue jewel Maleficent had given her—a clasp Elsa had once used to hold her cape closed.

“Always the first thing I removed,” the witch had told her in dreamy reminiscence. “Once, though, she put the cape back on after I’d removed everything else, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it, knocking against her alabaster skin as she—”

Mulan shook the image out of her head. It had been distracting when Maleficent had told her, and it was distracting now. She held the jewel in her palm and waited for it to guide her to its rightful owner.

Her eyes scanned the room for an urn, but it was an enormous vault, and it was full. Mercifully—for the sake of time, if not for the purpose of her visit—Mulan soon stumbled upon an urn exactly like the one Maleficent had described.

It was empty.

With great disappointment, she used the last of Maleficent’s disturbing store of Rumplestiltskin’s skin flakes to transport herself back into the castle. The smoke had hardly cleared before a voice that made her skin crawl reached her ears.

“My lady, it’s been such a long time.”

She knew it was pointless, but she affected her deepest voice as she turned to greet Robin Hood. “I’m sure you have me confused with someone else. My royal escorts would be happy to explain away any confusion—”

“Tell me, Prince Ping: is this disguise worth keeping up? I’m sure a part of you understands that I’ve already dispatched of your guard. The ones who didn’t betray you to me, that is.”

Mulan shook her head in despair. Robin continued walking closer. He was as close as Maleficent had been when she’d kissed her, but one hundred times less tempting.

“It would be so easy,” he continued, his gentle voice belying the meaning behind his words. “I don’t like to get my hands dirty with perverts, but we could solve this mystery right now.”

He would catch her if she ran. But he was going to kill her anyway.

She head-butted him.

Little John was waiting, arrow notched, but she rolled across the floor and ran swiftly out the door, evading his first arrow. She took in her surroundings: there were Merry Men everywhere.

But it didn’t matter: she had found the one that counted. The one whose daddy always equipped him with a tiny blade in a sheath in his left boot.

“Stop!” Robin shouted at his comrades.

Those who had rushed to Roland’s aid when Mulan had snatched him up now fell back.

“Daddy!” the boy yelled, terrified by the knife pressed against his throat.

“It’s okay, Roland,” Robin soothed him, stalking closer.

Mulan stepped backwards into the shelter of the trees, shocked at how close she might actually be to escaping once more.

“She won’t hurt you,” Robin continued. “Will you, Mulan? You might be a degenerate, but you’re not about to murder a child. Let’s stop pretending. Let the boy go and surrender already.”

“I have no intention of surrendering myself to you.”

“You’re being foolish. Little John will pick you off the moment he gets a clear shot.”

“No,” Mulan said, her heart filling with determination. “What’s foolish is having your best archer double as your best healer.”

Robin frowned. He didn’t know yet, the path he’d made her choose.

“I sure hope he makes it,” Mulan said, sliding the blade across Roland’s neck.


	6. Makeover makeover

She heard Robin’s anguished cry as the arrow he’d clumsily released sailed by nearly ten feet to her right.

Unsure where Little John had crept to, she weaved in and out of the trees at first, but abandoned the effort after half a minute. Little John loved Roland more than anything. Even if he did pursue her, he would be too emotional to be his normal deadly self.

The rest of the outlaws were surely on her trail, and the safe haven of Maleficent’s fortress was at least six hours away. If they were all on foot, she wouldn’t have been worried. She had outrun them before. But today they had her fallen coachmen’s horses.

She could hear hoof beats coming closer.

The pit in her stomach grew bigger as she realized the hoof beats were coming from the direction in which she was running. They had her surrounded. She knew she should stop running, should surrender to the men behind her, but she charged toward her newest pursuer.

She wasn’t expecting Maleficent’s unicorn to emerge from the thicket ahead, but she didn’t miss a beat. She jumped on her back and held tight to her sides as the beast bolted through the forest, leaving the outlaws behind.

With the creature’s unnatural speed, they arrived at the fortress within thirty minutes, leaving Mulan little time to reckon with what she’d just done.

She was greeted with a spine-tingling cackle from Maleficent.

“My goodness! Slitting the throats of your foe’s children! Inspiring!” The witch walked toward Mulan with her arms outstretched. “I could never muster the guts—that’s why I went with a sleeping curse—but you! You were merciless!”

“You were watching?” Mulan asked in a whisper.

Maleficent held up a mirror. “I have magic, my dear.”

“Is he okay?” Mulan asked, dizzy with regret. “I didn’t kill him, did I?”

“Who knows?” Maleficent cheered. “My mirror was trained on you because—despite what you might think—I care about you. I don’t give a shit about that little pest.”

Mulan could hardly hold herself upright. She’d slit Roland’s throat. That sweet little boy could be dead by her hand.

“Why didn’t you stop me? If you were watching, why didn’t you interfere so I didn’t have to do what I did?”

Maleficent cocked her head. “It was time you made a choice, discovered who you are.”

“But I’m not—”

“You did good,” Maleficent soothed her. “I know it doesn’t feel good right now—” She stopped and looked thoughtful for a moment. “I guess because it’s evil—but you did what you had to to survive. And you know full well what that boy was going to grow up like.”

“I have no idea what he was going to grow up like,” Mulan murmured.

“You know what you do know?” Maleficent asked. “You’re alive.”

“But instead of being dead, I’m evil now. What’s the difference? I thought I could be a hero and still be this way….”

“Look, kid, evil can be redeemed. Dead can’t.” The witch stopped and frowned before continuing. “Actually, evil can usually only be redeemed via a man’s love. But you can stop being evil when the world stops _making you_ evil. Don’t you see? This is what they get.”

“And what do I get?” Mulan whispered, nearly choking on her words. What could she possibly ever get now? Not Aurora’s love, that was certain. She was alive, but for what purpose?

Maleficent stretched out her hand, and Mulan absentmindedly took it. “You get all this.” She gestured to her fortress. “That is, until we inevitably turn on each other.”

Mulan let go of the witch and keeled over, her hands on her knees. “I can’t breathe.”

“Well, of course you can’t.” She snapped her fingers and the bandage binding Mulan’s breasts disintegrated. “And let’s fix the rest of this, shall we? You deserve to look fabulous after the day you’ve had.”

She waved her hand, and Mulan suddenly felt her hair falling over her face. She straightened up and felt her hair restored to its pre-Ping length.

Looking down, she saw Maleficent had given her a costume change as well: the trappings of Prince Ping had been transformed into an outfit Mulan had never seen before. It reminded her of her warrior uniform, but it had a scarier edge to it.

It felt majestic.

“That’s much better,” Maleficent cooed, eyeing her work.

Mulan half expected the witch to invade her space again, but she kept a respectful distance. This time, Mulan reached for her hand.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admitted, gently tugging the witch closer.

“I can teach you,” Maleficent whispered before their lips met.

She felt the witch’s fingers delve into her newly restored locks and gasped at the sensation—one she would never have the chance to experience at Aurora’s hands.

This is what she had now. This is what she was.

It wasn’t the right path, but it was the only one she had. She couldn’t find Elsa. She needed someone else. As she clawed the ruffled purple fabric from Maleficent’s body, she thought of the redemption she hoped awaited her.

The witch would do for now, but she could never be redeemed by her. She could never love her, and she could never find her way back to herself, back to good, if she lingered too long with evil.

Just one night, and then she would set out on another path. It was complicated, but Emma understood complication. The saviour might not be in this realm, but the woman she’d been in love with was. If anyone could help Mulan now, it was the Evil Queen.


	7. In which our hero embarks on a journey to find another queen

One night. She’d told herself she would stay one night.

It was nearly a year before Maleficent finally cast Mulan out of her fortress. A small disagreement over the odour of the feasting room snowballed into a duel involving a sword and a number of irreversible spells, a feisty round of make-up sex, and eventually a second duel that was more emotionally exhausting than physically taxing.

She soothed her guilt while she made her way toward the Evil Queen’s territory, trying to convince herself that she had stayed for more than just the sex. It wasn’t a complete lie: their constant spats had drastically improved her defenses against magic, and she felt more confident about her affliction. It no longer felt like an affliction at all, but she had no other name for it.

Her feelings for Aurora had not subsided as much as she’d have liked, but they had transformed somewhat. Anger helped, as did the satisfaction she gained from fucking the witch who had cursed the princess who had betrayed her. She knew the bitterness was part of being evil, and she was tired of it. It was time to move on.

Rumour had it that the Evil Queen was living in harmony with Snow White, and Mulan hoped that in addition to helping her find Emma, the queen would give her a few tips on redemption.

Not that being evil was all bad. It certainly made her feel less naive. The warrior she once was might have interpreted Snow White’s apparent refusal to launch a witch hunt for her as a show of support, but now she knew better. If Snow wasn’t explicitly on her side, she was probably just waiting for Mulan to ask for asylum, and when she did she would turn her over to Robin Hood.

Maleficent had told her what Snow had done to Regina. She felt a resonance with the Evil Queen—one that vibrated more strongly as she broke into the castle and followed her instincts down a series of hallways to the woman’s bedchamber.

The Evil Queen had a fireball waiting for her, but Mulan had learned months ago how to catch and dissipate such spells.

“Regina, I need your help,” Mulan said calmly, quashing the fireball in her palm.

The queen’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re the degenerate that forest fool keeps warning us about.”

She straightened her back and held her chin high. “I prefer Mulan.”

The queen smirked. “And why should I help you, a known pervert sneaking into my private room after sundown?”

“Because I—” A chill snuck up her spine, her body recognizing the distant sound of Robin Hood’s footsteps clomping down the hallway to the queen’s room. And he wasn’t alone. Her eyes widened imploringly at Regina. “He’s coming!”

The queen sighed and wordlessly guided her guest into her dressing room. Judging by the look of annoyance on the woman’s face, Mulan thought she might join her in the closet just to avoid talking to Robin. She was slightly disappointed when she didn’t.

Mulan listened intently as Robin entered the room, her ear pressed against the closet door.

“To what do I owe the inconvenience of your visit?” Regina snapped, welcoming her newest guests.

“Regina, Robin has some disturbing news.”

Mulan frowned, recognizing her old ally's voice. She was right about Snow partnering with Robin, but she took no satisfaction in it.

“Milady,” the creep began. “We have heard troubling reports of a woman who looks like the degenerate, Mulan, scaling the walls of the castle. I don’t wish to endanger you, but I must ask if I may entrust the safety of my son to your capable hands while I attempt to vanquish the unnatural beast once and for all.”

Mulan’s heart skipped a beat. Roland! He was alive!

“Of course,” the queen answered, her voice soft. “I will keep him safe.”

“Thank you, milady.”

Robin’s footsteps sounded in the direction of the door.

“Don’t nudge me,” the queen mumbled.

Snow’s footsteps followed the man’s and paused at the door before shutting it.

As much as she yearned to see the boy alive and well, Mulan knew she had to stay hidden or risk Regina’s life as well as her own. She listened as the queen tucked the boy into her bed and tried to calm him before casting a drowsying spell.

The door to the closet flew open, and Mulan found her arms and legs bound by the queen’s magic. She floated helplessly toward the glaring woman and cried out as Regina plunged her hand into her heart.

“I don’t like doing this,” Regina told her. “But I won’t allow you to hurt that boy again, and I can’t have you lying to me about why you are here.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Mulan squeaked

Regina cocked her eyebrow and squeezed the heart.

“I did,” Mulan amended, her brow starting to sweat. “But I don’t want to be evil just to survive. I want to find a fourth way.”

Regina frowned. “The fourth way to where?”

“Not where: what. Women like me have three possible fates: find a man and pretend we do not feel the way we do, allow ourselves to be burned at the stake, or fight for our survival through evil means. But that can’t be all there is. It can’t be. I want to be a hero.”

“And what makes you think I can help?”

Mulan looked into the woman’s eyes. Would she crush her heart into a handful of ash if she revealed what she suspected? She felt the words tugged out of her as the queen squeezed her heart once more.

“Emma,” Mulan spat out, using all the restraint she had. “I need your help contacting the saviour. If anyone can help, she can.”

Regina’s grip on her heart lessened, her eyes softened. “None of us can help you with that, I’m afraid. All connections to the Land Without Magic have been severed. We’re working on a way back, but Emma won’t be there." She sighed. "And she wouldn’t remember you if she was. I gave her and my son new memories and sent them away.”

Even in the queen’s hands, Mulan’s heart lurched. “Emma doesn’t remember you?”

Regina looked down at the heart in her hand and said, “And neither does my son.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why did your heart jump, just now?” the queen asked, her tone darkening, her grip on the red and black lump tightening. “Why does it injure your heart to imagine that _Emma_ doesn’t remember me?”

“I think it would be awful not to remember you,” Mulan murmured, flashing Regina a look Maleficent had used on her quite regularly.

Regina’s eyes narrowed, and she squeezed the heart painfully.

“She loves you!” Mulan cried, the words seeping out of her mouth, regret flashing brightly all over her heart at having betrayed Emma's secret. “No!”

Distracted by the confession, Regina’s magical constraints lost their hold, and Mulan tumbled to the ground. The queen still gripped her heart more tightly than Mulan felt comfortable with.

“Regina, please,” she gasped, curled in a ball on the floor. “I didn’t want to say it. I won’t say it to anyone else.”

“Emma Swan does not love me,” Regina spat.

“Okay,” Mulan agreed. “Okay.” She skittered back towards the closet as Regina marched toward her.

Cornering her in the dark dressing room, the queen plunged the heart back into Mulan’s chest. “You’ll stay here, and you’ll stay as quiet as the boy whose vocal cords you severed. When we get back to Storybrooke, you can have your fourth way.”

She looked up brightly at the queen, waiting for her to elaborate.

“Cross the town line, and forget everything you ever knew about yourself.”


	8. In which a new plan is made

The next two weeks flew by for Mulan as the occupants of the castle bustled about in preparation for the curse that would bring them to the land of the saviour. As it turned out, quite a few problems in this world could only be solved by Emma Swan.

Mulan was pleased to hear that Emma had been incorporated into her new ally’s plan, but she was reminded on a daily basis that the saviour would be busy battling Zelena and would not have time to help Mulan brainstorm paths to redemption. Regina was adamant that Mulan’s only option was crossing the town line and forgetting everything she knew about herself.

What was unspoken was that Mulan would also forget everything she knew about the Evil Queen, and the feelings the saviour had for her. She couldn’t blame the woman—it was the only way to protect herself from being accused of degeneracy.

“Why do you believe Emma loves me?” Regina asked one night from her bed.

Mulan crept to the door of the dressing room and cracked it open so she could hear the queen speak more clearly. So she could look at the woman and measure her response to what she said.

“I think she loves you because you raised her son so well. She sees herself in him even though she wasn’t there for him, and I’m sure she sees you, too—part of this boy she never expected to have in her life. I know it was a complicated situation. I don’t think she loved you right away. I don’t even think she completely loved you when I met her, but it looked like that’s where it was going.”

“I didn’t mean why she _might_ love me. I meant, what are you basing this assumption on?”

Mulan smiled. The queen looked frustrated, but she hadn’t interrupted Mulan’s long, intentionally wrong answer. She had wanted to hear about Emma’s love for her.

She lowered her voice to a soft whisper. “It was the way she looked at me when she caught me looking at Aurora that made me notice she might be like me.” Regina strained to hear her, so Mulan crept out of the dressing room and inched toward the bed. “I started to think about the way she talked about you. She rarely said anything that could be interpreted as positive, but it was clear you were precious to her. She’d risked her life for yours.”

Regina flared her nostrils and looked down at Mulan. “She only did that for Henry.”

“I doubt your son would have requested she trade her life for yours.” She crossed her arms on the mattress and rested her head on them casually, ignoring the queen’s annoyed expression. “Wasn’t he afraid of you?”

“Heroes never think about the consequences before they act,” Regina answered, malice in her tone.

“Neither does anyone in love.” She waited a beat. When the woman declined to incinerate her, she continued. “Tell me about how the portal activated in the first place. From what Snow told me, a magical hat seemed to activate when Emma touched you?”

Regina looked away. “Well that’s… that’s just because Emma has magic.”

“Because I heard somewhere that true love was the strongest magic—”

“It was just because Emma is the _product_ of true love. That’s why she has magic.”

“Hmm. She didn’t seem to have much magic when she was here with her mother.” She waited another beat. “How did they get back to Storybrooke? Aurora and I split off from the group before they left.”

“They opened a portal,” the queen answered, her fingers toying with a loose string on her blanket. “It was simple.”

Mulan suspected there was more to the story, and she smiled to hear the woman become so defensive. “How did you purge your heart of evil?” she asked.

Regina seemed relieved at the change of topic, and regaled Mulan with all of the ways in which her son had inspired her to become a better person. She confessed her relapses, and took pleasure in describing the incompetence of her allies in the battles she had won for the side of good.

What Emma had said about their relationship was true: it was complicated. But it was most definitely love.

She left the subject alone for the next few nights, but on the eve of the night Regina and her allies were to cast the spell to bring them back to Storybrooke, Mulan tried one last time to draw the truth from the queen.

“I wonder if I will ever love again,” Mulan shared, sitting in the farthest corner of the closet as Regina changed into a sleeping robe in some invisible corner of the room. “It feels awful, being betrayed, but my heart still feels connected to Aurora.”

Regina peeked her head into the closet and grimaced. “I’m sorry. I probably should have told you: Zelena turned her into a flying monkey quite a while back.”

This was not the turn Mulan had expected their conversation to take. Nor was manic laughter the response she thought she would have to such a fate for her princess. “Part of me wants to fight for her, but I still feel so bitter.”

Regina sat down at the entrance to the dressing room. “If you want to be good, you’re going to have to get past the bitterness.”

“What if good is pointless? What if it’s just deprivation and proper manners and burning girls who are different at the stake?”

“If bitterness feels so pleasant to you, you’re welcome to fight for it. But if anything has been pointless in my life, it’s the bitterness. I want happiness, and it is incompatible with bitter grudges.”

“How are you going to find happiness, though? Doesn’t the struggle to find something that comes so easily to others only make the bitterness stronger?”

“It does, but nobody falls in love with bitter, evil women.”

“Emma did.”

Regina pursed her lips and looked down at her hands. “Well, if she did we’ll never know. Even if we find her, she won’t remember me.”

Mulan tried not to smile. A breakthrough, at last. “You might have altered the memories in her head, Regina, but her heart knows the truth. I’m sure even with the happy life you gave her, part of her knows something is wrong. Her heart misses its companion.”

Regina’s breaths came deep and slow as she wiped a tear from her cheek. “I don’t think—” she said, her voice breaking. “I don’t think anyone could ever love me like that.”

“Come with me, when I cross the town line. Maybe the fourth way is just getting away from these people, memories intact. I don’t want to forget myself. Make a memory potion for each of us—four in total. I’ll help you find Emma and Henry, and we’ll navigate this other world together.”

Regina shook her head. “It’s my town. I don’t need a potion to leave it. The problem is, if Henry and Emma get their memories back, they will want to know what’s happening in Storybrooke. They would never let Zelena steal Snow and Charming’s baby.”

“Who cares what happens to Snow and Charming? They would burn us all at the stake. I’m sure if he knew that—”

“He would try to change their minds. He wouldn’t leave them to die by Zelena’s hand. No, we can’t leave Zelena unchecked. We have to defeat her first. Then we can leave.”

Mulan’s heart lit up. “Then you’ll do it? You’ll leave with me?”

Regina nodded. “I will.”


	9. In which Mulan believes this is the third chapter of her quest

Mulan woke up in a small room that smelled of leather.

The only conclusion was that the Merry Men had captured her. She examined her surroundings: odd, unnatural shoes lined neat cubby holes; strange fashions hanging from metal wires; a substance neither rock, metal, nor wood lining the walls of the room.

She looked down at her own clothes: her princely outfit was gone, replaced with textiles that felt nearly as good as her royal ones but looked much more poorly made. But why? She cast her mind back to the square in the French kingdom. Had they dressed the degenerate girl in strange clothes when they’d burned her at the stake? Were these strange fabrics more flammable? And why did she have long hair again?

Grabbing a particularly deadly-looking heeled shoe, she tried the door and was surprised to find it swung open easily. This room was filled with objects just as strange as the closet she’d emerged from, the strangest of which was a sleeping woman.

Mulan approached the bed, gazing at the woman. With some disappointment, she spotted the woman’s dark hair and concluded that it was not Aurora. A bird flew by the window to her right, and she noticed the landscape looked completely foreign.

Where had Robin taken her?

Who was this sleeping woman? She was certain she’d never seen her before in her life, but as she approached her heart swelled as though she were a dear friend. Was she under a sleeping curse?

The woman began to stir, and Mulan scurried back to the closet. She wanted to trust her heart, but if Robin had put the woman in the room with her she might be dangerous. Hiding behind the door, she watched the woman snap to attention, wide awake and sitting up.

“Henry!” the woman gasped, casting the blankets off of her and jumping off the bed. She ran out of the room and down a hallway, calling “Henry?!”

Mulan heard her race down a flight of stairs. Was no one guarding them?

“Emma?!” the woman called from downstairs. “Henry?!”

Mulan's eyes widened. Emma? She’d just been thinking of the saviour only a few nights before.

Henry! That was the name of Emma’s son!

Shuddering, she realized that this woman was Regina. But Regina didn’t live in the Enchanted Forest—she lived in the other land with Emma.

Mulan was baffled. She had gone to sleep at an inn in the Evil Queen’s territory and had woken up in her closet in the Land Without Magic. But how? And why did she feel like she knew this woman, beyond what Emma had told her of the other mother of her child?

She heard Regina exit the house, a crowd congregating on the street, murmuring in distressed tones. She could escape without them noticing her, but she wanted information before she left.

She looked back at the corner of the closet she’d woken up in and was disturbed to recognize a small drawer. The same size as the paper boxes in which some of the strange shoes were stored, she knew this box held something much more sinister. The last time she’d seen a box like this, it had held the heart of the woman she loved.

Steeling herself, she pulled the drawer out and examined its contents: three small vials of liquid. It was unwise to steal from the Evil Queen, but it was probably unwise to wake up in her closet as well. She pocketed the vials and crept through the house.

When she passed the mirror in the foyer, she noticed something completely off: the wound on her neck was gone. Only a small scar remained, as though a whole year had passed since Little John’s arrow had sliced through her skin.

She shook her head and made for the back exit of the house. Grabbing the hood sewn onto the back of her tunic, she pulled it over her head and snuck off of the Evil Queen’s land.

Emma had told her stories of this land, as had Neal, but she was completely unprepared for the roadways and the carriages that traveled upon them. In every building, fireless light shone through the windows. The people on the sidewalks were more strangely dressed than she was, and they nattered worriedly into flat black blocks held up to their ears.

Panic overwhelmed Mulan. The Land Without Magic seemed overrun by objects that had no other explanation than magic. She barely had a grasp on the magic villains wielded in her own land, and this magic looked to be completely different. She spotted the tops of the trees of the forest surrounding the town and yearned to find shelter in familiar company. But if Robin has anywhere in this town, he would surely be there. Neither of them would feel safe until they understood the rules of this new world.

She needed to find Emma, but she had no idea where the saviour might live in this town. Steeling herself for another pass along the strange roadway, she turned around and headed back to Regina’s. They were both looking for the same woman. She would follow the queen until she led her to the saviour.

 

* * *

 

Mulan was glad she’d opted to watch the town meeting through a hole in the ceiling. The last week and a half—or however long it had been—in the forest had built in her a distrust of large crowds and a knack for finding a good hiding spot, no matter how foreign the environment.

She scanned the crowd for Emma. When she spotted Snow, big as a house, she almost smiled, but something about her old ally felt wrong. Mulan’s heart felt uneasy whenever she looked at the pregnant woman.

Her unease grew as Snow and her prince explained to the townspeople that it appeared as though a year had passed since a curse had transported them back to the Enchanted Forest. None of them had any idea how or why they’d come back to Storybrooke, because none of them remembered anything from the last year.

Mulan sighed. She’d avoided the first curse, but now she’d been swept up like the rest of them. One beacon of hope remained: if she’d been transported here by the curse, so too had Aurora.

If a year had passed, the princess must have already had her baby. She wondered where they might be. Remembering her instinct to flee to the forest, she glumly concluded that her love and her nemesis must be sharing the same safe haven. She felt less certain today that Aurora was the key to her salvation, but she yearned to see her.

Just as she was about to dislodge herself from her hiding spot and track the princess down, she spotted another familiar face in the crowd. One she’d been looking at for the last few days. She wasn’t green in this land, but she was unmistakably the sociopathic witch who’d been squatting in the Evil Queen’s castle.

“Zelena!” she squeaked. She had to warn the townspeople. She had to warn Snow, uneasy heart be damned! A pair of evil green eyes met hers and she scurried away from the hole in the ceiling. She ran through the hallway outside the auditorium, her desire to protect the innocent overriding all caution she had about revealing herself.

Before she could get to the doors of the auditorium, a winged monkey grabbed her from behind and clumsily dragged her out of the building.

That limp! She had witnessed Zelena turning men into monkeys in the Enchanted Forest. Was this flying monkey—

“Will?” Mulan whispered. Whether he was working for Zelena or Robin Hood, or whether there was any difference between them, it didn’t matter. She recognized the pure hatred in the monkey’s eyes.

He flew her high into the sky, bit her, and let her fall through the air. The last thing she remembered was a mysterious incantation falling from her lips and a cushion of mulch rising from the forest floor to catch her.


	10. In which Mulan grapples with bananas and also her feelings

As it turned out, life as a flying monkey was very frustrating. Her thought process, like her body, had transformed, and she struggled to maintain at least a shred of her human self in this animal’s body.

Aurora. Love. Banana. Robin. Hate. Banana. Hungry. Banana.

When she wasn’t compelled to run errands or attack townspeople by Zelena, she worked on mastering her mind long enough to find the scraps of clothes she’d left behind when she’d transformed.

Whatever the vials from Regina’s drawer were, maybe drinking one would help. Anything was better than this.

It took days before she mustered enough independent willpower to find and crack open one of the vials. As soon as she drank it, she wished she hadn’t.

Aurora. Angry. Regina. Help. Robin. Hate. Banana. Banana. Maleficent.

She nearly forgot how to fly when she thought of Maleficent. She couldn’t formulate the words in her head, but with her memories came the knowledge that the magic that had allowed her mentor to reanimate in the Enchanted Forest didn’t work in this land. Why hadn't she warned her, back in the Enchanted Forest? She'd been too wrapped up in her own salvation, and now Maleficent was dead.

Maleficent. Dead. Elsa. Gone. Banana. Emma. Gone. Regina. Regina. Regina.

Some hope returned to her when Emma showed up in Storybrooke with Henry in tow. The saviour was alive. Once Emma defeated Zelena, the curse would be broken and Regina would remember Mulan and the conversations they’d shared.

Emma. Hope. Emma. Saviour. Regina. Emma. Love. Hope.

Guarding the entrance to Rumplestiltskin’s cellar prison, she could hardly contain a shriek of rage as she watched Robin Hood attack Regina. A monkey’s smile formed on her face as she watched her friend catch the idiot’s arrow and verbally smack him down. Minutes later, she found rage again, as she watched her nemesis press himself against the woman, who smiled in return and came to believe the man was her soulmate.

Regina. Despair. Regina.

Her paws itched to bring the woman one of the vials of memory potion, but when she tried to summon even a smidgeon of willpower to help any of the townspeople in their fight against Zelena, she collapsed.

Despair. Despair. Banana.

Increasingly, she let her monkey instincts take over. She turned townspeople into beasts like her and watched them burst into flames as their kinsmen shot them out of the sky. She nearly flew into an arrow, too, but between her monkey instincts and her own will to survive she was unable to put herself out of her misery.

Instead she watched as Emma let Regina slip away. She watched them bond over magic lessons and near-death experiences, only to witness them lose faith in each other moments later. She watched as Emma gave up on Regina, gave up on love, and resigned herself to spending time with that pirate who’d betrayed them all.

Death. Marriage. Evil.

She watched the love rekindle in Emma’s eyes when Regina broke the memory curse by kissing their son, only to see it stamped out immediately as the wretched, useless Robin Hood appeared and led Regina away.

But now Regina remembered. Mulan saw it in her eyes when she looked at Emma. She remembered that she loved her. Still, she left with Robin.

“Cowards!” Mulan yelled at them, but it came out as a monkey’s shriek.

 

* * *

 

By the time her friends defeated Zelena, Mulan hardly cared about any of them. She stuck around for a day, telling herself she meant to check in with Regina and clarify that her friend truly did want to stay in this horrible little town with the man who would kill her if he ever knew she’d shared her room with a degenerate or planned to elope with Emma Swan.

In truth, she had given up on her. Despite everything, all she really wanted to see was that Aurora was safe. She watched as the townspeople gathered in the diner, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the woman she still very reluctantly loved. Through the window, the princess met her eyes and Mulan condemned the traitorous parts of her heart that tingled.

Aurora pursed her lips in sadness, then looked away.

Mulan exhaled. How could she have ever loved such a coward. She wished for all the world that Maleficent were alive in this land, that they could wreak beautiful vengeance on this town of traitors. The witch had been horrible in so many ways, but at least she had never compromised her heart for a life half lived.

At her wish, a giant beam of light burst from the barn in which they’d fought Zelena’s last battle. Mulan couldn’t decide if she cared enough to find out what was happening, but at Emma’s voice she realized she might have one last ally to check with before she left town.

From what she’d overheard as a monkey, Emma didn’t want to live in Storybrooke anyway. Maybe this woman felt as awful as she did about loving someone who settled for the love of a man over her true love. She watched the saviour leave with the awful pirate and had to wait only minutes before the two had dealt with the problem and returned to the diner. Now she only needed to wait until Emma sent the pirate away, so she could speak to her alone.

Mulan felt her insides quake as the conversation between the saviour and the pirate became markedly different from their other interactions. She felt enraged. Why was Emma entertaining this man’s garbage words? True, the woman had it in her to legitimately love a man, but not this man. Not more than she loved Regina. What had she possibly experienced in the last few minutes that would make the saviour of all people choose this fate? Mulan couldn’t watch, but the sound of their wet mouths meeting was much worse than any visual might have been.

She stormed out of her hiding spot and marched across the road, heading for the town line. Down the road, she saw two lovers walking together, a child between them. Anger bubbled over as Regina’s eyes caught hers. The woman gave her a smile and a shrug, as though to say, “Maybe I’ll choose true love next time! This family is nearly just as good as my real one!”

Mulan was glad she’d slit that brat’s throat.

She gasped, horrified at the growing evil inside her. She raced to the town line and drew the vials of memory potion from her pocket. Maybe her heart would still have patches of darkness, but she didn’t want to remember any of this. She didn’t want to be a bitter, evil woman.

She threw one of the vials at a tree and watched it smash. She held the final vial in her hand for a moment before taking a deep breath and throwing it at the ground.

A cup made of ice rose to meet it, thawing in the middle just in time to cushion the vial and prevent it from breaking.

“It looks like you could use a friend,” a voice behind her called.

Mulan knew who it was before she’d even spoken, and she sighed in relief, not taking her eyes off the line on the road she’d nearly crossed.

The woman slid along a patch of ice until she was standing directly behind Mulan. She leaned over her shoulder and whispered in her ear, her lips grazing skin, “Or maybe something more.”


	11. In which a coldness enters a great number of characters through various methods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING/SPOILER!
> 
> There may or may not be the following in the final two chapters: very large tortoises, major character death, super expensive carpets, unwashed spinach, child death, and/or a really nice dress with an unpatchable hole. No promises, but I thought you should be warned of the possibilities.
> 
> END OF WARNING/SPOILER!

“Elsa,” Mulan whispered, her ear turning pleasantly cold against the woman’s lips.

She heard the queen smile. “You know who I am?”

“I searched for you in Rumplestiltskin’s vault, but you were gone. I’ve been looking for you.” She turned to face the queen and lost her breath. She was more beautiful than Maleficent had described.

Elsa smirked. “And why was it you were looking for me?”

“I—” Mulan stared at the woman’s taunting lips. “I forget.”

Elsa laughed, her smile completely ravishing. “Come closer. Maybe you’ll remember.”

The queen was cold, inside and out—a trait Mulan thought should have been disturbing but was instead quite refreshing against her fingers. She had also believed that having sex in the middle of the road in a town that tried to burn women like them at the stake should have been too dangerous to even contemplate.

Elsa had giggled at the suggestion that they move somewhere more private. “Who could stop us? Who could I possibly fear here?”

It wasn’t bravado. Mulan could feel the power emanating off of the woman, and it shone brighter when she touched her. In fact, Mulan herself felt more powerful with every touch, kiss, and lick from the queen between her legs.

When they’d both felt satisfied enough to stop, Elsa proposed they announce her presence to the town in style.

“Storybrooke isn’t worthy of your presence,” Mulan murmured. “The townspeople are all horrible. I think the world beyond this line is much better.”

“Then let’s leave them a parting gift, shall we?” Elsa suggested. She swept a strand of hair out of Mulan’s face with her cold hand. “You look like you might need the closure.”

 

* * *

 

 The first thing they did was find a good tree.

From the tree, Mulan watched with great pleasure as Elsa rained down shards of ice into the hearts of random townspeople and watched them slowly transform into sculptures of ice.

“Do you want me to spare your friends? Or maybe lodge a big one into the hearts of their lovers?”

Mulan wasn’t sure, so Elsa entertained herself by casting a substantial chunk of ice into the heart of a woman Mulan recognized: Belle. Elsa laughed with glee as the newlywed woman became instantly disinterested in Rumplestiltskin.

“Watch,” Elsa said with a giggle as the imp frantically surveyed his surroundings. “He knows it’s me. But he never learned how to break the spell himself.”

Mulan watched in horror as her former friend began transforming into an ice sculpture. She watched Rumplestiltskin cast a number of spells, each one failing to stop the transformation. Finally, he leaned toward Belle, lips puckered.

“Well, what do you know?” Elsa mused. Then she let out a cackle as Rumplestiltskin’s kiss had no effect on his lover. “He must be lying to her about something. Shame, I thought he had it.”

Belle let out a final declaration of love before her face froze over, her living body gone.

“Nothing anyone can do about it now!” Elsa trilled. “Who’s next?”

“I don’t know about this,” Mulan mumbled, unable to take her eyes off the friend she failed to save. The friend she didn’t even try to save. It was one thing to leave the townspeople to their ignorant, miserable way of life, but this was too much.

“Why don’t we start with the one who broke your heart?” Elsa suggested.

“Isn’t there another way?” Mulan asked, her voice coming out much higher than she’d intended. “Besides married, dead, or evil? Haven’t you found another way?”

Elsa looked at her and frowned before breaking into a wide grin. “I’m not looking for another way. I’ve found the path I want.”

“Can’t someone like us be a hero, if they really want?”

“Who cares?” Elsa answered, casting jagged pieces of ice into half of the dwarves on the main road, just to see if any of them would risk kissing each other. She clicked her tongue in disdain as the dwarves stood by their dying comrades, saying heartfelt goodbyes instead of trying to save their lives. “Why would you want to be a hero for these people?”

Mulan sighed. “I guess I don’t. But I’m not sure I want to kill them, either.”

“Come on,” Elsa said, her face bright with the prospect of adventure. “Tell me three things about your princess and I’ll see if I can guess which one is her prince. No, wait, I’ll ask you twenty questions.” Elsa watched something over Mulan’s shoulder and raised her eyebrow. “Is he the type to go digging for treasure in the forest late at night?”

Mulan shifted on the tree branch and peered down at the forest floor. There was Philip, walking towards the town with a shovel in his hands.

A deep sense of foreboding took hold in Mulan’s heart. She didn’t answer Elsa, but the queen exclaimed triumphantly when Mulan’s silence told her she’d guessed correctly. They waited for him to pass under their tree, then snuck down and started following the tracks he’d left behind him. It took five minutes to find the mound of disturbed dirt under the bough of a gigantic tree deep in the forest.

Elsa stood by as Mulan dropped to her knees and started desperately digging. Her nails scratched along the top of a box not unlike the ones she’d spotted in Regina’s closet. Shoes. This type of box was meant for shoes in this world.

She drew it out of the ground and opened the lid.

“What is ‘evil,’ Mulan?” Elsa asked. “Is it us, truly?”

Mulan let out a sob as she took in the baby’s eyes and nose—identical to her own—set above a pair of lips she knew well as Aurora’s. Her hair was black like Mulan’s, with a tiny curl at the front.

She was dead, of course. She’d been in the box too long, and both women knew no magic could reverse her fate. Still, Mulan tried. She kissed the little girl’s forehead and waited many minutes to see if it might have any effect. Finally, she laid the baby back in the box, and put the box back into the ground.

She stood up and clenched her fists. The ground started to tremble, dirt churning around the grave until the box was buried, a large rock marking the tomb.

Her legs felt weak, but Elsa caught her before she fell and held her in her arms.

“What do you want to do?” she asked, her voice gentle. “What do you need right now?”

“Aurora,” Mulan choked out. “Her first, and then the rest. We’ll kill them all.”


	12. The fourth way

They’d dispatched of half the town and Mulan still felt no better. She’d created a baby with Aurora, out of true love and the light magic she hadn’t known she had ever possessed. And Aurora had let Philip kill it. He would do anything to protect Aurora from being discovered.

Not that it saved her, in the end.

Mulan had taken no pleasure in burying the couple alive, listening to their bones break as her magic pushed them deeper and deeper into the heavy earth, their lungs filling with blood and sand.

Elsa had rather enjoyed the show, and had taken to doing the same to random townspeople, crushing them slowly under banks of snow.

All the usual heroes were still battling it out, but none of them could come close to touching her or Elsa. They were too powerful, too full of righteous indignation. The heroes were too full of hope to give up on their dying comrades, so half their forces were distracted with the hopeless task of reviving half-frozen lovers.

Some of them came back, of course. Snow and her prince had each taken a shard of ice to the heart three or four times. Elsa laughed each time one revived the other, and cast another shard into them.

“Shall we finish this?” Elsa asked, more bored than tired.

Mulan surveyed the survivors and spotted her favourites backed into a corner by one of Elsa’s giant snowmen. Regina, Emma, and the precious son who always brought them together. She scowled as she spotted the pirate and Robin Hood in their corner. Roland was still alive, too.

Why she hadn’t started with him was beyond her, but she was glad she’d spared her nemesis.

She nudged Elsa and pointed towards the group of heroes. “Watch. Shard the pirate.”

Elsa did as she was told, and the two watched, hand in hand, as Snow White called across the battlefield to her daughter.

“Kiss him, Emma! True love’s kiss is the only way to break the spell!”

Mulan laughed as Emma grimaced. She looked like a child caught in a lie.

“Swan!” the pirate urged her.

Emma shook her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Killian.” She placed a peck on his cheek and shook her head again.

“Aw, little pirate boy!” Elsa exclaimed, a cheery smile on her face as she watched the ice glaze over his face. “If only there was someone out there who loved you.”

The heroes’ group continued to battle the snowman. Mulan shifted the ground beneath them, raising Regina, Emma, Henry, and Robin onto a great earthy arch over the town. With a twitch of her finger, the ground beneath Henry faltered. His mothers worked together to pull him back to safety, while Robin notched another futile arrow on his bow as though the gesture of protection helped the women at all. Neither of them noticed, too busy wrapping their arms around their son in a group hug.

Elsa laughed. “I see what you’re doing.” She pointed one hand at Robin, the other at Emma. “Watch this.” A shard of ice pierced both their hearts simultaneously.

“Mom!” Henry cried, but Mulan had the dirt drag him to the bottom of the arch, as helpless as Roland to revive his parent from the spell.

Mulan watched attentively as Regina looked between Robin and Emma, too far apart to save them both.

“Emma!” Charming screamed from the ground below. He was running for the arch, but he would never make it in time.

“Come on,” Mulan silently urged her old friend. “Make your choice.”

She squeezed Elsa’s hand as she watched Regina run towards Emma, take the saviour’s head in her hands, and kiss her square on the lips.

Mulan wasn’t sure if she heard Robin squeak out a last cry before he died. Charming was screaming too loudly for her to hear anything else.

“No!!!” He pushed Regina off his daughter and watched, horrified, as the ice faded from her body. “No!!! Not Emma! Not my daughter, please!”

Slowly, Mulan sunk the bridge back into the ground, and Elsa dissolved her snowmen, so the whole town could watch the scene unfold.

“What happened?” Snow asked, catching up to her husband. “How did she—” She looked at Regina, cowering near the statue of her former soulmate. “No! True love’s kiss?”

“Mom!” Henry yelled, running to Emma and throwing his arms around her. He looked at Regina and smiled. “You saved her!” Looking back at Emma, he asked, “Does this mean we can all live together now?”

Charming grabbed Henry and pulled him away from his mother. “No, Henry. It doesn’t.”

“Oh, Henry,” Snow cooed. “You’ve read the book I gave you how many times now? You know women like them don’t belong in our stories. And they certainly don’t get a happily ever after!”

“Mom?” Emma squeaked. “What do you mean?”

“Emma, you’re a princess from a fairytale," Snow explained. "Children learn from the examples we set, and we can’t have them exposed to degenerates. I’m sorry I transported you to a land that didn’t teach you any better.”

“I’m sorry!” Regina cried, surrounded on all sides by sneering townspeople. “Emma, I’m sorry.”

“There’s only one fate for people like you in our stories: find a prince, or be expunged from our pages.”

“But I’m your daughter.”

“That’s why this hurts so very much.” Snow grimaced as she notched an arrow on her bow.

Mulan nearly jumped as Regina appeared behind Snow and plunged her hand into her chest. The woman dropped her bow and arrow and stood limp.

“This is getting good,” Elsa cheered.

“You forgot the third fate,” Regina said, her voice shaking as she squeezed Snow White’s heart. “Evil.”

“Mom, no!” Henry shouted, trying to keep the peace between the two sides, just as Regina had said he would. “Don’t let them turn you evil,” he pleaded. “I don’t want to lose any of you, to death or to evil. I’m sure we can work this out. There has to be another way. You saved her with true love's kiss! You should be able to be together.”

Mulan’s heart swelled as Regina resignedly returned her nemesis’s heart and took her place next to Emma. Maybe there could be another way, for them.

“Damn,” Elsa muttered. “I thought we had two new converts.”

But Mulan wasn’t listening. Her mouth grew dry as she watched Charming point his sword under Henry’s chin.

“Henry, we don’t have enablers in our stories, either.” He wiped a tear from his eye. “You’re all degenerates.” He looked at his wife. “We can start over, with Neal.”

Snow nodded solemnly.

“Are you out of your mind?” Emma screamed. She looked at Regina imploringly, and Mulan watched as they both seemed to make a decision.

But she couldn’t let them.

“The prince! Now!” she commanded Elsa.

As Charming started to freeze over, Emma and Regina took advantage of the distraction to pull Henry from the tip of the prince’s sword. They clenched their teeth in worry as the townspeople closed in on them, and clasped each other’s hands in relief as the ground swelled and formed a bridge past their foes.

They ran together, dodging those that would have them killed, following the earthy bridge as it led them towards the town line.

Mulan steered them with bated breath, plunging any attackers who came near them deep into the earth. It was too late for her to walk any other path but evil, but she still wanted someone to find a fourth way. Deep down, she knew that even if she crossed the town line without the last memory potion, her heart would still be bitter. She would still be evil, even if she didn’t remember what she was.

But Regina and Emma didn’t need to end up like her. She could still give them her best chance. It wasn’t exactly selfless, but it was something worth sacrificing herself for.

She breathed a sigh of relief as the trio crossed the town line, then turned her attention to those who remained. She knew her heart darkened with every life that snuffed out under the rising dirt and falling ice. She knew she was truly evil now.

But she was finally a hero, too.


End file.
